One of Tony Campolo's early books, published in 1983, was The Power Delusion: A Serious Call to Consider Jesus' Approach to Power. In it, he writes:
Before I go any further, it is important that I specify how I will be using the word power. I am defining power as “the prerogative to determine what happens and the coercive force to make others yield to your wishes – even against their own will.” This last phrase is crucial, for the coercive nature of power gives expression to its potential for evil. Coercion is the crux of why power is irreconcilable with Christianity.
When a leader is able to persuade others to do his will without coercion, when he presents himself in such a way that people want to obey him, when they recognize him as a legitimate leader with the right to expect compliance with his wishes, I say that he has authority.
These definitions of power and authority are taken from the writings of one of the greatest sociologist of all time, Max Weber. Since his day, most sociologists have employed definitions of power and authority that approximate these. Furthermore, most sociologists acknowledge a very significant relationship between power and authority. They notice that as power increases, authority decreases, and vice versa. (11-12)
I have always appreciated this concise distinction between power and authority. Every time I reflect on this distinction, my mind goes to Mark 10:35-45, where James and John asked Jesus for the choice positions of power when Jesus came into "power." As Martin Luther King, Jr. noted about this passage, Jesus does not rebuke them. On the contrary, he essentially encourages them to seek the choice positions. Then he explains that the path to obtaining those choice seats is through making yourself the least of all and by serving everyone else. "Go for it!"
As Campolo acknowledges in his book, and as most of us well know, there is a place for coercion in the world. The very best parents in the world must occasionally use coercive force to gain a child's compliance. The state must use coercive force to restrain the behavior of destructive people. What is essential to recognize is that every use of power is a diminishment of authority, no matter how legitimate its use is. In a crass businesslike analogy, service done on behalf of others puts deposits in our accounts while the exercise of power constitutes a withdrawal. Most of us are more than willing to acquiesce to the occasional responsible use of power from someone who has amassed a large account in the authority bank. We will likely conclude they do so with our best interests at heart. However, as the authority account depletes and the exercise of power increases, we tend to become more defiant and less accommodating, which often goads the power user to use more power.
As we think of how society functions, the most desirable order of things would be for people to have internalized virtuous values upon which they act. Yet we live in a fallen world where both the powerful and the powerless are fallen human beings. Those with power tend toward creating order through coercion or the threat thereof. The powerless, precisely because they are without power, tend to comply in their behavior but not their hearts. When the opportunity to exercise power is afforded to those once powerless, they frequently turn to power to make their agenda prevail.
Jesus' New Creation teaching is not about imposing order through power. It is about transforming minds and wills by exercising authority. That authority comes through other-centered living. Leaders with authority have developed a long track record of seeking what is in the best interest of those around them, and because of that, people tend to conform their hearts and minds to the leader's lead. The leader's virtuous values and behavior become the followers' instinctive internalized values.
Like James and John, Christians of all political stripes tend to be easily seduced into the power approach to realize the New Creation. In the USA, conservative Christians deplore what they see as deteriorating moral values. All too often, their primary solution is to advocate for laws that compel compliance with a moral vision. More left-leaning Christians see things like income disparities and economic injustice. All too often, the primary solution is to constrain economic freedom and compel compliance with their vision of virtuous economic behavior. These strategies may indeed gain compliance with visions of appropriate behavior, but it diminishes the authority of those who have succeeded in making their vision prevail through power. Few hearts and minds are drawn into New Creation values and living. By prevailing with power, we risk losing all transformative authority and becoming nothing more than another political obstacle in the path of those who disagree.
Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the exercise of power can be avoided in community. I'm not saying Christians should not be engaged in political or other institutions where power is exercised. I am saying that witness to the New Creation cannot be given through heavy reliance on the use of power. I am saying that in whatever part of society we work, we have to be about more than gaining compliance with behavioral standards. We have to be about the transformation of minds and wills through the use of authority we have earned. That authority is earned only through other-centered love flowing from God to others through us.
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